Customer Reviews

Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (Compass)

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Everything you ever wanted to know about Bernadette Soubirous, Lourdes, Catholicism and French politics. It is definitely not a "Song of Bernadette" type of book, but,scholarly and, for the most part, a real page turner. It's obvious that a great deal of effort went into it. The bibliography, alone, is mind-boggling! It is not time wasted to read this book.

This is a well-researched, well-written study of Lourdes, its origin and its impact. It's excellent history, on the whole. But the interpretation of Lourdes leaves much to be desired. Harris does not believe in the miracles she describes--she is Jewish--and fails, ultimately, to take a position on Lourdes that is anything other than vague and unsatisfactory. Moreover, the narrative is marred by feminism (a couple of lines on page 331 evoked laughter) and an undue emphasis on the anti-Semitism inherent in 19th century France. Harris is every bit the politically correct historian of her time. Alas.

Oh yes, we also get a nice dose of anti-Catholicism in the Epilogue. It seems that the Church liked Nazis. Alas. And the critics rave.

Unlike the standard pious or devotional book on the phenomenon of Lourdes, Ruth Harris approaches her subject not as a devotee or skeptic, but as a historian. With no axe to grind, she (theoretically) can take a dispassionate view of a topic that has claimed the passions of generations of believers and non-believers since 1858, when Bernadette Soubirous reported her visions of the Blessed Virgin. Harris chronicles the visions themselves, of course, but throws her net much wider to help the reader understand their historical and social context.

In 1854, Pope Pius IX (whose anti-democratic bent would appall modern American Catholics) promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception - which stated that the Blessed Virgin herself was conceived without the stain of Original Sin. Just four years later, Bernadette's vision revealed its identity in Bernadette's Pyrenean patois: "Y soy Immaculad Conceptua" -- virtually confirming the newly-proclaimed dogma. How this must have gratified the wing of the Church that supported the Pope - and how it must have rankled those who saw Pius IX as a retrograde disaster for the Church!

Harris subjects Bernadette herself to close scrutiny, chronicling her family's hardscrabble existence, her father's business incompetence and the family's recent shameful residence in a cold, drafty former prison. Harris presents the Bernadette of history--asthmatic, lice-ridden, desperately poor, barely educated yet devoutly religious--whom the Virgin graced with her visible presence. In detailing Bernadette's stark, grimy reality, Harris allows us to witness the girl's no-nonsense and even gritty brand of holiness.

Bernadette's visions are wonderfully detailed. Many will be surprised that Bernadette's vision of a playful 9-year-old differs markedly from the standard image of the Blessed Mother. Harris portrays Bernadette's poignant and fruitless attempts to prevent her countrymen from correcting the apparitions to make them conform to their impression of what the Virgin "really" looked like. It is such delightful glimpses into Bernadette's world that make the book so fascinating.

Harris goes well beyond the Lourdes apparitions. She explains why, of all the Lourdes visionaries, only Bernadette's visions are passed along to us. She discusses how Bernadette's post-vision behavior was vital to "selling" the apparitions to the public. Harris discusses the economics and small-time politics of the region, its native patois and the confusing political/religious alliances that sought to use Lourdes to further their own causes. Along the way, Harris spotlights the emerging role of science in the 19th century, and the antipathy with which luminaries of the day (notably Emile Zola) viewed the cures and miracles of Lourdes.

The Lourdes phenomenon teaches that holiness cannot be understood apart from the hopes and social circumstances of real life. The apparitions, bound so tightly to the language, dress and prejudices of a particular people, place and time, seem truer than if they were otherworldly and distant. The Virgin Mary, dressed in the garb of Bernadette's time, speaking her patois, connecting with her girlish heart through play, spoke to a single girl in space and time. But by doing so, she speaks with greater clarity to all people in all times.

That the phenomenon of Lourdes can survive the scrutiny of a historian's eye is almost as miraculous as the original luminous apparition!

Ms. Harris tells the story of the wonderous events in the small town of Lourdes, and relates them to the history of France in the second half of the 19th Century. Her approach is to tell the story of the events through the lives of the people involved. To do so she quotes from letters and diaries as well as official records. In order to write in such depth, she must have read everything ever written during this period about Lourdes. Between the Notes and the Bibliography at the end of the book is a three page Dramatis Personae listing all the major people associated with the shrine. Not just for Catholics, the book devotes many pages to the role of women in 19th Century France and will be of great interest to anyone wanting to know about women's rights in France. It is also a "must read" for people interested in French social history. She also looks into the relationaship of anti-Semitism to the Catholic piety of the time. People are never presented two-dimensionally to represent the ideals or concepts they championed. Ms. Harris treats the people she writes about with respect and intelligence. As for Bernadette's vision and the miracles, she tells what is known (and she knows a lot!) and the reactions they caused without taking a stand one way or the other herself. Truly a great work of historical writing.

Having received an Amazon gift certificate, I eagerly a sought book on Lourdes which I had not yet read. I came upon Ruth Harris' book, surprised that I had never seen mention of it in any Catholic literature. Indeed, each and every one of the rave reviews in the book is from secular sources, and scant wonder. The book is an unabashed attack on Catholicism from beginning to end. The author seems bent on depicting the Lourdes phenomenon as being made possible primarily because of a deeply-rooted pagan or earth-based folk spirituality beneath a forced, thin veneer of orthodox Catholicism. The author consistently uses the term "Counter-Reformation" as synonymous with 19th century orthodox Catholic culture, as if to imply that this culture was largely reactionary and paranoid, and sets out to portray the true believers at Lourdes as being in opposition with and repressed by the orthodox Catholic hierarchy. In spite of her reviewers' awe of her "elegant scholarship," she makes incredible leaps of interpretation. For example, in describing how people over the years have been led by stray cattle and other animals to discover miraculous hidden statues of the Virgin Mary, Harris concludes that the presence of animals in these tales and their wooded settings must indicate a pagan sensibility. She gives a sexual interpretation to the anecdote of a bull licking a statue of the Blessed Virgin. With this kind of thinking, Harris would probably look upon the story of St. Francis and the Wolf and determine that St. Francis must really be a pagan at heart! Furthermore, when she insists that when these statues are placed in local churches and miraculously find their way back to their hidden forest "homes", this proves their defiance and rejection of the institutional Church, an assumption made in apparent ignorance of the fact that, on the contrary, the Church seeks to spread truth and devotion to all remote and hidden corners of the world, and generally builds chapels and shrines upon the sites of such miraculous findings-- of which Lourdes itself is a supreme example! In one chapter on the Lourdes visionary Bernadette Soubirous, Harris compares her with another young, female, 19th-century French saint, St. Therese of Lisieux. Flying in the face of historical records which verify the unusual, almost idyllic happiness of the Martin family, Harris averts to modern psychobabble and describes them as "tormented", and criticizes the fact that Therese was interested in political happenings only to the extent that they offered the promise of converting the heathen-- as if this was not incredibly rare and laudable in someone so young. She makes the unsubstantiated remark that the Martin parents "taught the children to accept without question the perceived conspiratorial links between Freemasonry, Jews, and the devil," just one in a series of gratuitous potshots at some fantasized Catholic anti-Semitism. Deciding that she must know more than the Catholic Church who declared St. Therese a Doctor of the Church the year before her own book's publication, Harris makes the common blunder of mistaking Therese's concept of 'spiritual childhood' for childishness, and amazingly states that this led to Therese's perception of "God as mother." Though Harris does use some original documents in her research, claims of the more spurious kind are most often based not on these primary historical sources but on articles written by other, similar modern scholars with similar "modern" agendas. Her supposed admiration for Lourdes seems based primarily on its social-work dimension of volunteers helping the sick. I can honestly say that, other reviewers' raves about Harris' scholarship aside, I feel I learned little in the way of undistorted fact aside from her several mentions that St. Bernadette Soubirous had fleas.

The author is to be commended for an intelligent and fair-minded work about the apparations at the Grotto of Lourdes, and the events which took place for the 50 or so years after that event. It's difficult in this extremely secular time to present a cogent history of a time and place where faith and miracles appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary, such as this backward region of France in the mid-nineteenth century. Like most Catholics of my time, I knew some general things about events at Lourdes, but the detail included in this book is astonishing! At times the work is a bit tough going, but it is always interesting and informative. The author maintains a carefully-orchestrated neutrality during the entire course of her book, and that alone is commendable. It's worth reading if for nothing else than to see how entire lives were immersed in religion and belief in the hereafter and the manifestation of God's benevolence towards the world through the intercession of His mother. You don't have to be of any particular religious persuasion to be awed by the simple faith of many of these people, and the trust they had that there were still times when miracles happened. I envy them their belief, and I applaud the author for not condescending to them. She has done a marvelous job!

Historian Harris here traces the history of the phenomenon of Lourdes, considering those who make the pilgrimage to Lourdes and considering how Lourdes prospered despite social and political changes over the centuries. The social and political aspects of Lourdes are examined in depth in an engrossing, revealing presentation highly recommended.

Don't believe the Mel Gibsons of the world, who think everyone who does not mindlessly echo their own beliefs is "anti-Catholic". This is a wonderful piece of history that both scholars and open-minded general readers will enjoy. I highly recommend it to those interested in the history of medicine and science as well as modern French culture and, of course, religion.

Ruth Harris purports to write a scholarly treatment of Lourdes. Clearly, scholarly in her sense of the term means a rejection of the actual faith which underlies the history of Lourdes and most of the people who go on pilgrimage there. It is a common ploy today for intellectuals who reject the faith itself and are in fact hostile to it to disguise their true dispositions by characterizing simple believers as adherents to some kind of folk beliefs independent of the actual content of Catholicism. In this way, Harris is able to attack Catholicism itself but appear to respect phenomena such as visions, miracles and those who believe in them. The latter are cast into the framework of common folk thinking and acting independent of the hierarchically-constituted Church. Harris' Lourdes exists only in her imagination and in the confines of the intellectual constructs she imposes on it. It is similar in vein to those who cast Our Lady of Guadalupe into the framework of syncretism, that is, the common people subverting Catholicism by mixing it with pagan elements. The truth is known to be otherwise for those who are careful to study the history. Lourdes and Guadalupe are towering monuments to Catholic orthodoxy. Harris' perspective has nothing to do with the actual dispositions of Saint Bernadette Soubirous and the millions who have followed her to the grotto in Lourdes. This work will impress those who know little about Lourdes or Bernadette and are predisposed to Harris' psychological and sociological reductionism. I might add that a work purporting to be objective would have considered more carefully the extensive scientific evidence. Those interested in the real Lourdes and the real Bernadette should read the works of Rene Laurentin, the best Lourdes scholar.

This book is a gem simply for providing a detailed glimpse of the historical, social, political, and religious landscapes that surrounded the actual "event" of the apparitions. The author takes the figure of Bernadette and 'Aquero' firmly out of the strictly pious, sentimental realm and places them firmly in the realm of their time and circumstances--all without denying the events their fair sense of mystery. An important work that finally begins to give Lourdes its scholarly due in the secular sphere as well the religious.